This starts out like every good story,

“So there was this one time, when I was drunk…”

Drinking at a neighborhood bar, the owner (of the bar) tells me she just got LASIK eye surgery done in the city (Hanoi). She got it done at the Saigon Eye Hospital on 77 Nguyễn Du for 15 million Vietnamese dong ($700). It’s been a year. She can still see, wonderfully.

Eff it. I’ll get it too.

The first part of the plan, is to make a plan. To do this, I go to the address on a Sunday afternoon, so I can talk to people. The good life is sweet, sweet timing:

Turns out, the Saigon Eye Hospital has a 50% off LASIK promotion until the 31st of July, 2014. The pre-screening is also free this month.

All the doctors are also ex-models. I’m funny.

The fifth floor LASIK area is packed with people, not surprising, because in Hanoi, if there is a sale, and it’s a Sunday, it will be packed.

I take 3 eye exams, the trajectory rather straightforward, I do ask to confirm if I am where I am supposed to be in the process. Doctors are curious about where I’m from. I tell them I’m a Viet Kieutie, that I’ve been in Vietnam because I’ve wanted to learn Vietnamese, that I was close to marrying a Vietnamese woman years back, that if I were to fall in love again, she would have to have chân dài, because as a man of my height, all I’ve ever wanted in life, are long legs.

I am approved for the 7.500.000 ($350) procedure. I schedule an appointment for 1:30pm the day after (Monday). I buy drops to begin the continual lubrication of my eyes.

The good life is continual lubrication.

1:30pm, Monday, July 7, 2014

I taxi to the Saigon Eye Hospital, with 7.500.000 VND in my left pocket, an emergency 500.000 VND in the other, iPhone with 3G on so I can call my friend via Siri.

I pay. I get the cocktail of eyedrops we will all have to take for the next month. All us 17 LASIK patients are orientated in Vietnamese, I’m the only visible foreigner. I understand 30%, as I usually don’t talk about eye matters (no “eye” lexical set).

We all enter the waiting room. An older nurse instructs me to change into the patient garb. “In front of the whole room?” I thought for a hot second, stripping down to my boxer briefs, her immediately clamoring “What the hell are you doing? Just wear it over your clothes!” The whole room of twentysomething Hanoians is lighter with laughter (at your service) — everybody falls back into the collective anxiety of uncertainty, rubbing hands, calm-breathing their best. It feels like we’re in a bunker, 15 minutes from a frontline, going to war with newer versions of ourselves, better or worse.

We are re-orientated by the male nurse, who re-runs us through the procedure like a young Fonz in scrubs, chain-link sterling round his neck, him chatting me up about American girls. Someone’s iPhone goes off, he casually advises that perhaps, it’s not the wisest idea, to have your smartphone go off in one of the more important moments of your life-thusfar. He keeps everything cool hunnie-bunnie. Before I switch off, I Facebook my optometrist friend Phuong.

I am scared. I start thinking about women I would like to see (in that way) one last time. I start wishing they were there, right next to me, singing old Motown songs, holding my hand. Next time, if a dear one is about to die, I would be there for them, retelling my biggest embarrassments, how I somehow got over, how we will always somehow, get over.

My right eye is first, one top eye retainer, one bottom, one suction ring for the center, a cordial version of Clockwork Orange. As instructed, I look at the green light with the looming red light. Green is broccoli. Green are the trees. Green is the casino tabletop. My eye goes underwater — drab blue-gray, not the blackness I mistakened for blindness — some sounds — more like zims than zaps or zarks. The only unpleasantry: an off smell of machinery, my only request being the room smell like forest-oxygen or blue-sky. In less than a minute, the green re-emerges. Beautiful green. Then the left eye. After 5 minutes under the machine, I saunter back to the waiting room bunker, eyes closed, peek for a second — YES — at least I can still see. Neck back, eyes shut, welder-goggles on, my life has quietly changed. Zim.